Leveling the playing field in studying cumulative cultural evolution: Conceptual and methodological advances in nonhuman animal research.

Abstract

Cumulative cultural evolution (CCE), the improvement of cultural traits over generations via social transmission, is widely believed to be unique to humans. The capacity to build upon others’ knowledge, technologies, and skills has produced the most diverse and sophisticated technological repertoire in the animal kingdom. Yet, inconsistency in both the definitions and criteria used to determine CCE and the methodology used to examine it across studies may be hindering our ability to determine which aspects are unique to humans. Issues regarding how improvement is defined and measured and whether some criteria are empirically testable are of increasing concern to the field. In this article, we critically assess the progress made in the field and current points of debate from conceptual and methodological perspectives. We discuss how inconsistency in definitions is detrimental to our ability to document potential evidence of CCE to nonhuman animals. We build on Mesoudi and Thornton’s (2018) recently described core and extended CCE criteria to make specific recommendations about, from a comparative lens, which criteria should be used as evidence of CCE. We evaluate existing data from both wild and captive studies of nonhuman animals using these suggestions. We finish by discussing issues currently faced by researchers studying CCE in nonhuman animals, particularly nonhuman primates, and provide suggestions that may overcome these concerns and move the field forward.

Endogenous cortisol correlates with performance under pressure on a working memory task in capuchin monkeys

“…Our study contributes to the growing literature on how a high-pressure situation affects cognitive performance by specifically examining how non-human animals perform in response to pressure. The fact that we see some evidence for choking in other species suggests that humans’ responses are not due to humans’ language 38 , high-level cumulative cultural evolution 39 , or well-developed theory of mind 40 , but factors shared more broadly across animals. Moreover, because we saw choking in a species that does not show evidence of self-consciousness about their performance (or indeed, evidence of self-awareness in general 41 ), our results support a distraction or over-arousal account of choking, rather than the one proposed in the explicit monitoring hypothesis.…”

The Cumulative Quality of Culture Explains Human Uniqueness

“…The complexity and diversity of culture in human populations is unmatched by other species (Rawlings, Legare, Brosnan et al 2021). We live in increasingly complex and diverse environments filled with technologies inherited, accumulated, and transformed over generations.…”

After a decade of tool innovation, what comes next?

“…Largely because psychologists’ interest in tool innovation was piqued by comparative research, which tends to focus on comparing animals to human children (which itself may be a problematic approach; see Rawlings, Legare, et al, 2021), few studies have examined tool innovation beyond childhood. We know little about if, and how, it continues to improve into adolescence and adulthood, which in many cultures may be periods when tools are used more frequently (Hewlett, 2021).…”